Data released by the Census Bureau Wednesday showing a staggering 16 million children in the U.S., about one out of five kids under the age of 18, received food stamp assistance in 2014. Overall, more than 46.5 million Americans were on food stamps last year, according to the Department of Agriculture. Food stamps are officially [...]

The way you functionally subsidize companies paying low-wages to workers– ponying up the difference between what McDonald’s and others pay and what those workers need to live via taxpayer-paid SNAP (food stamps) and other benefits– is a hidden cost in plain sight. You’re already paying higher prices via higher taxes; you just may not know it.

In the days before Thursday’s start to the trial for alleged Portland Christmas Tree bomber Mohamed Osman Mohamud, pre-trial hearings revealed two new details. First, the government failed to reveal to the defense an effort to “pitch” Mohamud on October 27, 2009, 13 months before they arrested him in an FBI-created plot. This comes on top of earlier revelations about a key meeting the FBI failed to tape, another failure to reveal FBI contacts, and Abu Zubaydah’s brother’s claim that, as an FBI informant, he was asked to track the then-16 year old Mohamud as early as 2008.

One of the first results of the Citizens United ruling is the creation of the business-funded group MN Forward, the allegedly “bipartisan” outfit whose actual political leanings may be divined by the following evidence: Its head honcho is Brian McClung, who less than two months ago was the deputy chief of staff Tim Pawlenty; and its first TV ads have been for Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, who is essentially Pawlenty without the mullet and even less humanity.

But a funny thing happened on the way to buying yet another corporate-friendly Republican governor. A couple of funny things, actually.